Rion had traveled for almost three hours without stopping. The trees here were twisted, their bark ashen-white, their limbs curling like hands reaching toward the sky. The air tasted stale—like the memory of incense long faded.
Azrath's presence was quiet, unsettlingly quiet. The demon rarely stayed silent for long.
Rion's boots scraped against old stone as the forest finally parted, revealing the ruins he had been searching for:
The Shrine of the Sealed Moon.
Once a sacred place guarded by the Lunar Priesthood, now a collapsed skeleton of pillars and vine-choked marble. The crescent sigils etched into broken walls gleamed faintly, reacting to Azrath's presence in Rion's soul.
A metallic taste hit Rion's tongue.
"…Why does this place feel wrong?" Rion whispered.
Azrath finally spoke.
His voice was low, its usual mocking lilt absent.
"Because this is where I died."
Rion froze.
A cold wind swept through the ruins, stirring the dust like restless spirits.
Rion stepped deeper into the shrine. The floor was cracked open in places, exposing old ritual circles beneath the marble surface.
"You said you were sealed… but you never said where."
"You never asked."
Azrath's tone carried something Rion had never heard before—bitterness.
"This shrine was built as a prison. A cage made of scripture and fear."
"By the Order?"
"By the ones who claimed to protect your kind."
Rion knelt near a broken altar. Faded bloodstains coated the stone—old, blackened, impossible to identify.
But Azrath remembered.
"They chanted my name as if it were an illness. They called me a corrupter, a void-born parasite. They painted themselves as heroes."
"…Aren't you a demon?" Rion retorted instinctively.
"And mortals have never lied about their enemies?"
Silence fell.
Rion swallowed hard.
There—behind the altar—something caught his eye.
A mural.
Half-erased, half-cracked, but still decipherable:
A demon kneeling.
A priest holding a blade not in attack, but… in oath.
A circle of light binding them together, not as enemies but as partners.
"What is this?" Rion murmured.
Azrath answered quietly.
"The truth… before it was rewritten."
And then, a line of Azrath's voice turned sharp, tremoring with restrained fury:
"Your Order betrayed me first."
Rion's heart skipped.
Azrath had never directly spoken of betrayal—not until now.
A crack of branches.
The sudden sting of hostile mana.
Rion spun around.
Cloaked figures stepped into the ruins—six of them—bearing the insignia of the Exorcist Order. Their garments shone with moon-lit embroidery, their blades glowing with purifying runes.
At their front stood a woman Rion recognized instantly:
Seraphine Vale.
His former mentor.
And the Order's Hound of the Crescent Moon.
Her eyes widened at the sight of him—relief, pain, and duty mixing into something unreadable.
"Rion."
Her voice trembled.
"Thank the heavens. You're alive."
She took one step forward—
Then stopped.
Her pupils contracted.
"…You've been tainted."
The exorcists formed a circle instantly, blades pointed.
Azrath hissed inside Rion's mind.
"Careful, boy. These ones won't hesitate. They're the kind that kill first and pray about it later."
Rion lifted his hands defensively.
"I don't want to fight any of you."
"Then surrender the demon," Seraphine commanded.
"We can still save what remains of your soul."
Azrath's voice cut through his skull.
"If you let them touch you, we both die."
Rion tensed—stuck, cornered, breath turning sharp.
One of the exorcists launched forward, blade aimed at Rion's heart.
Rion moved to dodge—
And then darkness surged.
It wasn't a command.
It wasn't even a choice.
It was instinct.
It was hunger.
It was Azrath's power responding to the threat.
Black tendrils of shadow erupted from Rion's spine, cracking the air with pressure. His vision blurred into crimson haze. A roar—not human, not demon, something in between—tore from his throat.
Seraphine's scream cut through the chaos.
"RION, STOP!"
But he couldn't.
The shadows lashed out, tearing the ground, shattering pillars.
An exorcist was thrown against a wall, armor splintering.
Another was pinned by a tendril, gasping in terror.
Rion's body wasn't listening—
Azrath wasn't speaking—
And his own consciousness was slipping like sand through his fingers.
A voice echoed from within the darkness:
"You're not ready for this form… you'll burn yourself alive!"
And then—
A hand touched his face.
Warm.
Human.
Seraphine.
Her palm pressed against his cheek, glowing with purification magic, yet… gentle.
Pain seared through him, but it cleared the fog.
"…Rion… please…"
The shadows recoiled, shriveled, returned into him like breath being forced back into lungs.
Rion collapsed to his knees, trembling, gasping, drenched in sweat.
The exorcists recoiled in fear.
Seraphine stepped back—
Not from fear, but heartbreak.
"What have they done to you…?" she whispered.
Azrath growled within Rion's soul.
"They will twist the story again. They will call you corrupted. They will turn you into the monster they need."
Seraphine raised her hand—
A signal.
A plea.
A command.
"Seize him."
Rion's breath broke.
Azrath whispered sharply:
"Run. Now."
And Rion obeyed.
His footsteps echoed through ruined stone as he fled deeper into the forest—
Leaving behind the shrine, the truth half-revealed, and the Order he once trusted.
Behind him, Seraphine's voice cracked:
"Rion… don't disappear like he did…"